Posts Tagged Education

Faith in Free Schools

The coalition Government’s ‘free schools’ proposal hasn’t so much split religious believers from atheists, but more those who accept parent choice as a progressive reform, and those who reject it. Despite the fears from all sides, there is a good chance that all of Britain’s diverse belief systems will benefit if schools gain more independence.

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Philistines and other social problems

It was a depressing moment when this news story made the front page of the BBC website ‘ Pupils forced to listen to Mozart’.  The head of West Park School in Derby, Brian Walker, punishes his students in detention by making them listen to classical music, “featuring Elgar, Mozart, Verdi and Bach.”  They are often also forced to watch an educational video, such as the ’story of math’.

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Short-selling our most precious assets

Over the last decade the government has made a number of attempts to revolutionise the teaching profession, some less successful than others. The most recent proposition is particularly questionable. The plan is to implement a ‘fast track’ teacher training course, in which candidates are fully trained and working in the classroom within six months. As if this was not controversial enough, it is said to be geared towards ex-City workers. Read the rest of this entry »

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Teachers’ verdicts on the three parties’ education policies

Whilst the Liberal Democrats are having to work hard for coverage of their policy proposals this week, amidst a storm of financial and political crises, their education policies do appear to have caught the attention of teachers, according to a Times Education Supplement (TES) poll published today, writes Anastasia de Waal.

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Critical Mass: Government’s ‘Small’ Infant Classes Too Big

Infant classes of 20 or under needed to close the achievement gap

OECD figures out today show how poorly the UK continues to compare internationally on class size. Primary class sizes rank 4th largest at 25.8 (compared to the OECD average of 21.5). Additional government figures reveal that in England’s primary schools in 2007/08 the average class size was even higher, at 26.2 pupils per class. According to the evidence, this matters most in infant classes (for 4-7 year-olds, Reception to Year 2), which rose from 25.6 in 2006/07 to an average of 25.7 pupils per class.

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“And in the twilight zone, trees are purple (not blue, as Gove claims!)”

Dr Ruth Lupton of the Institute of Education has taken the Conservative’s recent education report, A Failed Generation, to task for using dodgy statistics to claim that the education gap between rich and poor has widened on New Labour’s watch. Her criticisms are powerful but not exactly an overwhelming indictment of the report. One of its claims was based on a statistic on SATS mistakenly provided by the DCSF suggesting, helpfully, that results of repeated information requests from government departments are not especially accurate.

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